The Health and Human Services Department has published guidelines on the conditions under which records pertaining to a patient's alcohol and drug abuse can be shared via electronic health information exchange systems.
A 30-year old federal law has protected the confidentiality of substance abuse patient records and prohibited their disclosure without the patient's consent.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) this week published a set of frequently asked questions to clarify how healthcare providers and other organizations can apply the regulations specifically to electronic health records and HIE.
The confidentiality regulation governs the use and disclosure of alcohol and drug abuse patient records that are maintained at federally funded substance abuse programs.
In announcing the set of frequently asked questions, SAMHSA and ONC suggested the current consent regs have unnecessarily discouraged healthcare organizations from exchanging substance abuse records electronically.
"The consent requirement is often perceived as a barrier to the electronic exchange of health information," according to the announcement June 16 by SAMHSA and ONC.
Instead, according to the policy, such records can be distributed electronically if certain conditions are met. Those include the requirement that treatment programs receive patient consent to disclose patient protected data to health information exchange organizations and their systems. In addition, HIEs cannot redistribute records with individual providers on their networks without a patient's specific consent.
Primary care physicians who write prescriptions for other conditions for such patients must get patient consent to see the patient's protected substance abuse information so the clinicians can determine medication drug interactions.
More information is online.
